A Canadian delegation of parliamentarians met with Chinese government officials, in which the Canadian delegation claimed Canada can “learn” from China. 

The delegation released a report detailing the meeting, which took place on August 27th, 2019 in Bangkok, Thailand. 

At the time of the meeting, the Chinese government was cracking down on the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. The report reveals the Canadian delegation did not raise the issue of the Hong Kong protests. 

The report was released by the Canada-China Legislative Association. Among those present for the meeting were former NDP MP Irene Mathyssen, Senator Joseph Day, Senator Victor Oh and Senator James Munson. 

“Not only is this relationship important now, but it will become even more so in the future. There was recognition on both sides that China and Canada can learn from each other,” wrote the report. 

The trip cost taxpayers approximately $52,066 according to Blacklock’s Reporter and the delegation has agreed to receive a Chinese delegation in Ottawa in 2020. 

Hong Kong police are suspected to have used about 1,800 canisters of tear gas on innocent protesters since June 2019. The Chinese-backed police officers continue their crackdown efforts and have tear gassed crowds of people in residential areas.

In November, the chair of the international affairs committee of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party, Emily Lau, told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau he needed to get his “head examined” over his silence on the situation regarding the Hong Kong protests. 

“There are priorities and this one is a pressing issue, you see it on the news every day. So, if the prime minister cannot find time to say something about it, his head needs examining,” said Lau.

The Liberal government has been relatively quiet regarding China’s domestic affairs, which include the interment of over one million Uyghur Muslim minorities in re-education camps. 

The Chinese government has also arbitrarily held two Canadians in prison for over a year since December 10, 2018 in retaliation for the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou who is wanted by U.S. authorities for allegedly breaking sanctions on Iran. 

According to Chinese officials, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor will be facing “national security” charges. 

A division of Quebec engineering giant SNC-Lavalin has pleaded guilty to fraud over $5,000 in relation to the firm’s activities in Libya.

SNC-Lavalin Construction Inc. will pay a fine of $280 million over five years, and will be under a probation order for three years, during which the company will be subject to external monitoring.

“This is a game-changer for the Company and finally allows us to put this issue behind us. I apologize for this past misconduct and welcome the opportunity to move forward,” SNC-Lavalin CEO Ian Edwards said in a statement.

On Wednesday morning, the Toronto Stock Exchange suspended all trading of SNC-Lavalin shares as the firm returned to court.

SNC-Lavalin and two subsidiaries were accused of spending $48 million to bribe government officials in Libya from 2001 to 2011.

The guilty plea comes just three days after a Quebec court found former SNC-Lavalin vice-president Sami Bebawi guilty of corruption, laundering proceeds of a crime and fraud – all related to the company’s Libyan activities.

Bebawi was found to have pocketed $26 million while bribing the son of former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in return for lucrative contracts in the country.

“The company adopted an unusual, unlawful and dishonest practice by artificially inflating the prices of contracts, paying bribes and misappropriating money for personal gain,” said Crown prosecutor Anne-Marie Manoukian at Bebawi’s trial.

The company is also accused of spending $2 million on parties and prostitutes for Gaddafi’s son.

In total, SNC-Lavalin funnelled $118 million into a shell company used for illicit dealings in Libya.

Earlier this year, former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of pressuring her to prevent SNC-Lavalin’s case from going to trial. Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion later ruled that Trudeau broke the law by using his office to undermine Wilson-Raybould’s authority.

“The authority of the Prime Minister and his office was used to circumvent, undermine and attempt to discredit the decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions as well as the authority of Ms. Wilson‑Raybould as the Crown’s chief law officer,” wrote Commissioner Dion.

Two convicted terrorists found guilty of plotting a terror attack on a VIA Rail passenger train have requested to have their retrial by judge alone and without a jury. 

In 2015, Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser were convicted of terrorism charges over suspected support for al-Qaeda and plotting the attack. 

The pair were each charged with two counts of participating in terrorist activity and conspiracy to commit murder for the benefit of a criminal organization. Essaghaier also had an additional conviction of conspiracy to derail a VIA Rail train. 

“Had this plot been carried out, it would have resulted in innocent people being killed or seriously injured,” said RCMP Assistant Commissioner James Malizia. 

Both Jaser and Esseghaier had picked a train route where they intended to stage the attack and were in the planning stages of their plot when apprehended by police in 2013. 

In August 2019, the Court of Appeal of Ontario granted the terrorists a retrial due to a “legal error” made by the presiding judge who found them guilty. 

Over a decade before Jaser was convicted as a terrorist, Canadian authorities were considering deporting him over fraud convictions. In 2004, the government decided against Jaser’s deportation because of his status as an alleged “stateless person.”

The new trial is set to take place on September 14, 2020; however, the Crown is currently appealing to have the Ontario Court of Appeal decision for a retrial overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Liberal government has cut the amount of rebates Canadians are able to collect in four provinces that are pushing back against the federal carbon tax.

The majority of the provinces affected by the rebate reduction are in the west. 

The cuts will mean that Canadians in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario will collect less money to offset the costs associated with the federally-imposed carbon tax.

Canadians are expected to pay $30 per tonne of carbon dioxide emitted in 2020; the tax is rising by $10 per tonne until 2022. Though less than two months after the election, the Liberals have said they’re reviewing whether to hike the carbon tax beyond the $50 a tonne cap.  

The decision to review the cap comes after a report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer which pointed out the current tax rate would have to be hiked up to $102 a tonne by 2030 to hit the government’s Paris targets. 

The Alberta government is fighting the federal government at the Court of Appeal over the constitutionality of the carbon tax.

According to a lawyer representing Alberta, the federal government is interfering in the division of powers laid out in the Canadian Constitution by imposing a federal carbon tax on the province. 

“Does this mean any time there is some national, pressing concern identified by the federal government that they’re able to impose national standards on the provinces on matters that clearly come within the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces?” asked lawyer Peter Gall. 

The governments of Saskatchewan and Ontario are intervening on behalf of Alberta. They have also launched their own court challenges, which were unsuccessful but have been appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada. 

The 32-year old man responsible for mowing down four pedestrians and brutally attacking one Edmonton police officer has been sentenced to 28 years in prison.

Justice Paul Belzil passed down the sentence on Friday, December 14, 2019. In October, a jury found Abdulahi Sharif guilty of 11 charges, five of which were attempted murder. 

While in court, Sharif showed very little emotion and provided no defence for his crimes.

Sharif was able to avoid terrorism charges despite his prior praise of the Islamic State and investigators discovering an ISIS flag in his vehicle. However, the flag was never called as evidence by Crown prosecutors during the trial. 

“As Crowns, it’s our job to look at what is relevant to the charges before the court. And in this case we called evidence that was relevant to the charges we had and the jury convicted on all the counts,” said Crown prosecutor Elizabeth Wheaton. 

On September 30, 2017, Sharif struck Constable Michael Chernyk with his car and then attacked him with a knife while he was on the ground by stabbing him in the side of his head.

Sharif then proceeded to get into a U-Haul truck and hunted down four pedestrians.

Several years prior to the attack, Sharif was reported to the authorities by a coworker in 2015, who alleged that Shaif held “genocidal beliefs” including a hatred for Shia Muslims and holding ISIS in high regard. While Sharif was investigated by Canadian authorities, they had found no reason for concern at the time.

Sharif, originally from Mogadishu, Somalia, entered the United States through Mexico in early 2011. While in the United States, he was apprehended by immigration authorities and ordered for deportation. 

Sharif made his way to the Canadian border and crossed into Ontario where he claimed refugee status. Shortly after, he was granted refugee status by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. 

As True North founder Candice Malcolm pointed out in 2017, several red-flags were ignored, including the United States’ deportation order and Sharif’s beliefs about terrorism. According to internal emails, immigration officials were considering Malcolm’s criticisms when discussing media coverage which was critical of the country’s screening system.

American politicians have raised the alarm over the attack and called upon the United States government to review the circumstances which led to Sharif’s entry into the United States and subsequently Canada. 

Former Republican Representative Trey Gowdy penned a letter to the Department of Homeland Security calling on them to look into the “vulnerabilities” which eventually led to the attack.

“The Committee is deeply concerned the vulnerabilities existing in 2011 which allowed this individual to enter, be released, and transit through the U.S. may still exist today, said Gowdy. 

“More than one year has passed since the attack, and it appears there has been no comprehensive study of the incident.”

At the same time, the Canadian government claims they took all steps to screen Sharif.

“There was no information about him that would have raised any red flags,” former Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said.

The federal government has been granting secretive temporary visas to high profile foreign officials potentially involved in war crimes, human rights abuses, terrorism and other inadmissible activities, according to a Global News investigation. 

Internal documents show that the government has cited “national interest” as the reason behind issuing the “public policy” visas. The visas last up to two years and allow multiple trips in and out of Canada. 

Since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was first elected in 2015, 2,214 of these visas have been granted. According to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the number of visas jumped in 2015 to 1,063, whereas in 2014 only 385 were issued. 

Since 2010, 3,000 of these visas were granted to people who were considered inadmissible.

The federal government has refused to provide details about what country of origin these individuals came from and under which category they were deemed inadmissible. According to an internal operations bulletin, the visas look like ones regularly issued by IRCC and those who receive them are not made aware of their special status. 

In 2015, the government granted a temporary visitor visa to retired high-ranking Egyptian Brigadier General Saber Abdelhamed Zahw despite concerns over his time in the army during the country’s 2013 military coup.  

Despite being found inadmissible by border officials, Zahw and his wife were allowed into the country. A senior official from the Department of National Defence (DND) wrote a “national interest” letter to IRCC sponsoring the two and asking that security concerns be waived. 

In the letter, the official argued that Zahw should be granted special permission because Canada did not want to ruin its relations with the Egyptian military. 

“It is in our interest to maintain constructive relations with members of the Egyptian military as these relationships enable execution of Canadian Armed Forces operations in the region, most notably Operation CALUMET,” wrote DND Assistant Deputy Minister for Policy Gordon Venner. 

Six months later, Zahw applied for refugee status in Toronto in order to permanently remain in Canada, claiming that he was mistreated by Egyptian officials after allegedly opposing the coup. 

When the government refused to give Zahw refugee status, he argued in court that because he had been granted entry before and that he had no involvement in the coup, his refugee application should be accepted. However, the Immigration and Refugee Board and a federal court ruled against him and denied him refugee status. 

On December 13, Greta Thunberg threatened to put politicians who aren’t helping fight climate change “against the wall.”

“We have to make sure that they cannot do that. We will make sure they… that we put them against the wall, and that they will have to do their job and to protect our futures,” said Thunberg during a speech in Italy.

To put someone “against the wall” is a common idiom that can refer to executions or assassinations. 

A day later, Thunberg apologized for the comments insisting that she never intended to imply executions and that it was a mistranslation of a Swedish expression to hold someone accountable. 

“That’s what happens when you improvise speeches in a second language. But of course I apologize if anyone misunderstood this. I can not enough express the fact that I —  as well as the entire school strike movement — are against any possible form of violence. It goes without saying but I say it anyway,” said Thunberg. 

The teenage climate activist has recently come under fire for her extreme climate rhetoric and political views. 

Recently, Thunberg denied that her views were ‘political’ and that she was only trying to communicate scientific facts. 

“I’m sometimes called ‘political’. But I’ve never supported any political party, politician or ideology. I communicate the science and the risks of failing to act on it. And the fact that the politics needed don’t exist today, neither to the right, left nor center,” said Thunberg. 

However, Thunberg has received the support of a number of progressive politicians and left-leaning groups.

In one image, Thunberg can be seen wearing an “Antifascist” t-shirt associated with the violent extreme left-wing group Antifa. 

Thunberg has also met with former President Barack Obama, where he told Thunberg that they were on the same “team.” The teenage climate activist also called the socialist Democrat Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “incredible.”